-1Okay, so I made a deal with Solain that if she would update 'Solitary Trial' (which she did, and wonderfully at that) I would update this fic. It's been a while and I'm trying to get up to speed again, so I'm sorry for the long wait. Also, some of you have informed me that Machiko's father committed suicide and her mother remarried. This was a little fact I overlooked in the book, so from now on in the official Quiet-O-Verse Machiko's father wasn't a suicide and the Noguchis are still happily married (dead now, but hey - can't win 'em all).

Desiderata

by

Quietharm

Chapter Six:

Excerpt from One of the Hunted:

In the temples of nature
I hear the laughter
Just another victim on
This lonely trail
They show no emotion for
This loss of life
It reminds me of myself not long ago
And the cries for life that
I'd seem to ignore
The cries for life are now
My very own

One of the hunted
The tables have turned
One of the hunted
There's nowhere to run
One of the hunted
The tables have turned
One of the hunted
There's nowhere to run

-Kamelot

Machiko stared down the empty street, wondering how to begin. The pavement stretched to a small pinpoint on an acrid horizon, blurred by the smoke wafting through the air. It wasn't beginnings that she feared, it was the cloudy distance - the unforeseeable end to things.

It should have been such a small, simple thing to merely begin walking. To walk away from the Uchida household and the comforting memories of her parents and childhood, all laying behind her in shattered disarray. Someone had rattled the walls by slamming a door on that aspect of her life and a figurative family portrait had fallen from its place on the wall. The mistake of the moment had been made, and it crashed to the ground in shards of glass and splintered wood.

She heard sibilant voices of the past chastising her for the mess, but the mess was made.

Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.

If only she could rest and lay down. Her bones would settle with her thoughts, and she would dream. It would be an endless dream, a dream of a world before this one where she was on the precipice of discovering herself. Before Ryushi, before the predators. That time when she was a university student had been her most liberating - still a girl, not yet fully a woman. The framed depiction of her life as it was before the horrors would be squared quite nicely again, the smiles of her family bright and alive.

Yet-

-still two-dimensional. Not real, not here, not now.

Never again.

Life was survival, life was realizing what she had while she had it and not reliving or wishing on instances that had gone. They were brief snapshots in an eternity of humanity, flickering in and out of existence like slides on an old film reel. None survived without the ones before them, and none would repeat. Those moments took her to this present one, and in this period of time that she currently accepted as reality she made a grim resolution. It was revenge, after all. She believed it would be far worse to die without making the attempt than to die within it.

The bugs would be stopped. If the predators were indeed the source from whence they came, then she would not stop until every last one of them lay rotting.

That included the one at her side.

"You can't come with, you know," she mentioned quietly.

The large yautja snorted once. They had walked back to Machiko's household in the meantime, and now both stood in front of the Noguchi's carport. The Noguchis owned several transport vehicles, some designed mainly for pleasure and some for the complete opposite. The last thing Machiko felt like doing was cruising to work in a sporty hovercar, which was the one vehicle within the selection that she actually claimed ownership of. Her mind skipped that option and fell absently upon the choice that had been her mother's own personal ride to and from her social events. The beige hovercar was small for a family-sized vehicle, but it had served the small Noguchi clan well in its prime. It was a high-end but nondescript, fuel-efficient but unable to sustain high speeds.

Fine with me. I'm in no hurry to get to work anyways.

"I mean it. For one, Chigusa is pretty far from here. Walking is out of the question. That leads me to reason number two… you won't fit in a standard hovercar. You'll have to find your own way there."

I can't believe I'm reasoning with him. I can't…

Her mind snapped into silence when he gave a low trill and a curt nod. She had expected a fight, a refusal, something - not easy compliance on a first-time request.

"Huh? So… so you'll meet me there, then?" How he would even go about doing so was beyond her fathoming. Did he just call for Scottie to beam him up or was there another way about it?

There was a speculative span of seconds before the hologram of the corporation burst forth from his wrist again. He tapped it once with his opposite hand and the image dissolved with a crackle as if it had never been there in the first place.

Another inhuman nod, and then he reached across the space between them and centered his first two taloned fingers directly against the brand on her forehead. The pads of his fingers seemed too hot to withstand, and she instinctively took a step in reverse. For this action she was dealt a swift pinch on her earlobe as he had done earlier.

Scuttling back with even more haste and hoping her ear would be released in the process, Machiko watched in dumbfounded silence as he emitted a clear trill. He let go of her ear the moment she began to back away, and regarded her for several moments before turning himself. Like a watery apparition, he stepped through the air and was swallowed up by the unseen.

It would be so nice, to disappear like that.

She was left standing in front of her home, alone and wondering why the feeling of his fingers pressed to her temple was more immediate than the urge to break down and cry.

Chigusa corporation was a large complex in the heart of the Marunouchi district. It sprawled both upwards and outwards over several city blocks, a mini-city of glass and steel. Separate sky rises were connected by walkways far above the sidewalks and chaos in the streets below.

The visitor's center was unsurprisingly closed, but a few employees still hazarded their way into work via a quieter route thick with security measures. At least twelve cybernetic automatons stood in the parking pod, their firearms held in an upright position. They remained unmoving, poised in a perfect line at the first checkpoint that all Chigusa drones had to pass. The cost of one was more than Machiko made in a year's salary, which explained their absence on any other planet save Earth. Still a prototype, they had been bequeathed from their creators a level of intelligent thought that had preset rules and designations for the art of combat. They knew a number of fighting styles and military tactics inherently, but as an added measure they could also be controlled via human influence from a control center deep within Chigusa's labyrinths.

They were called P.U.R.E., oddly enough. It was an ironic western acronym given their real name, which boasted even more prowess than Machiko would be apt to give them - Peerless Unilateral Robotic Enlisted.

Machiko swallowed as she exited her mother's hovercar from her pre-designated parking area. She approached the sleek guardians, her gaze wandering over their cylindrical heads and the glow of their unblinking yellow eyes. Their build was humanoid, but their appearance was most certainly not. There had been a news story some weeks ago covering P.U.R.E. and Chigusa's newest aim to make them appear more 'friendly' for security use in the visitor's center and other public places. Twelve were present here, but Chigusa no doubt had many, many more in his arsenal.

"Unidentified approach. Please confirm identity." A disembodied man's voice streamed through the air, overriding the pleasant concert music being piped in from well-placed speakers.

"Noguchi, Machiko. Employee badge #33238A," she replied with just as much monotone.

"Badge #33238A found. Please step forward for calibration and confirmation."

The Japanese woman did so with a sigh, ignoring the sightless stares from the P.U.R.E. group. A robotic arm lowered from a panel above in the ceiling, and aligned with Machiko's face. The end of the arm had what appeared to be a clear, rectangular sheet of iridescent glass attached to it. It was this object that she put her face up to, her eyes moving so close that her eyelashes clicked against the cool plane. Light flooded her vision. The machine scanned her retinas as it was designed to do in a matter of seconds before retracting back into the ceiling from whence it had come.

"Confirmation complete. Please proceed."

Anxious to move away from the P.U.R.E. sentinels, Machiko did not waste one second in removing herself from the parking pod as the steel door before slid open. Beyond this door was yet another checkpoint, but thankfully with a human being present. About a year ago Chigusa had been infiltrated by a rival company who had passed the first checkpoint by copying the retina pattern of a pre-existing employee and imprinting it into a pair of contacts. The details of how they had managed to secure the pattern in the first place was beyond her knowledge, but Chigusa had more than it's fair share of whistleblowers and deranged employees in the past. After a thorough investigation, arrests were made and things quieted down again.

Needless to say, a human guard had been implemented to check the ID of every Chigusa employee from that point on. Some said it was primitive and a P.U.R.E. could do it just as easy if not with more accuracy if one or two were reprogrammed, but the CEO had mandated it himself. No one argued with Chigusa.

"Ms. Noguchi, how's the weather?" The grandfatherly voice belonged to a man in his mid-60's who sat behind a pristine white receptionist desk in the middle of a long white room. In fact, the entire chamber resembled a sterile sanatorium cell save for the splash of color that was the guard and his computer screen. He sat slouched on an office chair in front of his computer, calmly tap-tapping the stub of his eraser against a written report. Intermittently, he would chew at the stub with blunt yellow teeth while a rain of wet eraser shavings fluttered down and landed upon his paperwork.

"It's…"

How's the weather?

People were dying left and right outside in the streets. She had taken a butcher knife from the kitchen before leaving home because it was the only form of weapon she had left. The skirmish at the Uchida household had left her once again sans firearm. In the aftermath she had been too absent-minded to go back for another one of Mr. Uchida's pretties. She regretted that now, she really did.

Presently, however, she was definitely thinking that perhaps the company CEO had made a dreadful mistake. A P.U.R.E. could do better.

"It's fine, Mr. Hiroyuki." Her voice came pleasantly, evenly, and in the end that pleased her.

Keep yourself collected, girl. A lot has happened, some people have died, but you're at work now.

God, something was stinging the corners of her eyes.

"That's good. I heard there's some pretty crazy shit going down out there, pardon my language."

"You would be wise to direct yourself in a more befitting manner in the future, Mr. Hiroyuki." The ice queen was back.

"Sorry, Ms. Noguchi. I never did think you were one for language…"

If only he really knew.

"…but I'd get a change of clothes if… well, I wouldn't go into work like that…"

Machiko gave the elderly guard a dark look. "My business is my own. Do you need my identification card or may I continue on?"

The guard dropped his eyes at her black mood, unable to casually look upon her drawn features a moment longer. If looks could kill, she would have achieved the effect. Nervously, the man began to chew faster upon the end of his pencil while waving her on with his freehand. He obviously wanted her to move along as much as she did.

"No, no, I'd know who you are any day."

"Thank you."

What does he mean by that?

She had been somewhat bitchier to old Hiroyuki than usual, but after everything she felt she had earned the right. Before her mission to Ryushi, she had worked within the complex for a number of years and had always shown the old man indifference at most - but he had been stationed at the visitor's center then and their paths did not cross often.

What he most likely would attribute to PMS paled in comparison to the hell she had been through in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe she would apologize to him later - maybe.

Hurrying on without a backward glance, Machiko left the guard to devour his pencil while she took the elevator to the 45th floor.

The moment the elevator chimed was the moment Machiko exhaled a breath of air she hadn't realized she was holding. She exited the elevator, her sneakers squeaking and echoing down the empty hallways. Like the second checkpoint, the décor and any form of color was seriously lacking.

Alone, she winded her way down the straight and narrow corridors without seeing another form of life. Staving off the creeping notion that she was being watched, she came to cease any forward motion once she reached a door at the end of the east wing. It was just like every other door that lined the hallway save for the small brass plate beside it.

It read, 'WOMEN'S LOCKERS'. Her hand darted out and turned the knob a bit faster than was her normal speed. She slipped through the aperture she created, and firmly shut the door behind her by bodily leaning against it with a heavy sigh.

A hand absently touched her forehead, where behind her mark a burgeoning headache threatened to eclipse whatever little comfort she had left. Wincing a bit, Machiko stepped away from the door and blinked several times to adjust to the garish lighting conditions.

The women's locker room was a long room that appeared just as deserted as the hallway it was connected to. A long line of lockers stretched unbroken on either side of the walls to her right and left, separated by two rows of low benches cemented into the floor. At the end of the room was a public shower area and yet another open room that took a sharp turn and stretched on to the left. Steel sinks and stalls could be found there, each identical and in pristine condition. In fact, Machiko could never remember a time before Ryushi that she had found the locker room in any small form of disarray. The janitorial staff in the building worked like thieves in the night, stealing into the public restrooms and office spaces with little or no notice by their white-collar kin. It was the unfortunate plight of the lower classes, that invisibility.

Shaking her head as if to clear it of her inane thoughts, she made her way to a locker on the right side, near the door. She had visited the headquarters not long after landing planetside in order to be assigned a locker and office, a feat that had lasted a few hours before she was allowed to finally return home. The password to the locker and her office had been given to her then and further sent to her home as a reminder.

Now she found herself attempting to remember it.

"823123?" she murmured, and then shook her head when the combination failed on the locker's keypad.

Maybe it was 823321... yes…

The locker trilled in acceptance and she swung the small metal door aside in satisfaction.

Wait.

Now it was her turn to swing around. Machiko did a complete one-eighty, and then wheeled around a second time when her vision refused to identify anything else in the immediate vicinity save herself. Nervously, her eyes flicked about the room in speculation before she saw the door to the hallway open and close by its own accord.

No, not by its own will. Dahshannday's will.

He had come into the locker room with her and she hadn't even noticed it. Granted, she had felt unease in the hallway, but that was the only time she had felt the nagging sensation of being observed. Had he been in the elevator with her? In the parking pod?

We were supposed to meet here, but does he have to be such a stalker about it? Why is this place so important to him, anyways?

Not wasting another second, she dove for the door just as it clicked and yanked it open violently. Her head jerked out into the hallway, but she saw nothing. No tell-tale watery distortion, nothing.

"Dahshannday!" she called, her tremulous tenor ringing in vain down the empty corridors.

No reply.

She bit her lip, fighting the urge to curse his very existence then and there - but she didn't want the hive to wonder if their newest worker bee was a bit touched in the head on the off chance someone was within earshot.

More than disgruntled, the young woman backed up into the confines of the locker room once again and made a beeline for her locker once more. A neatly folded gray business suit lay within, along with a pair of black heels, a few toiletries, and hose she had stashed there on her initiation day.

Machiko removed the articles of clothing and handled them gingerly. The three-piece suit was nothing fancy, but it was formal enough. It was comprised of a white blouse, single-breasted jacket, and matching skirt. Tucking these under one arm, she fished out the heels and package of hose next before turning for the stalls at the end of the room. She chose one of the handicap stalls at the long end of the procession, merely for the added room needed to make changing a more timely procedure.

She changed quickly. Her fingers were a flurry of movement across the buttons of her blouse and jacket, and then she was sliding into the skirt. The hose came next, and she hopped around on one leg during a bad moment of lost balance. Once she was positive that she was not sporting any runs in the delicate material, she stepped into the high heels. They were uncomfortable but fashionable, bearable if she did not spend great lengths of time on her feet. Thankfully, this was usually the case.

Machiko left the stall and moved to the sinks. A dollop of soap later and her hands were submerged beneath the bubbly froth produced by the pressure of the hot water hitting the cleanser. Once her hands ran clean of foam, she risked a glance up to the long, rectangular mirror hanging above the sinks.

She really had to stop looking at her reflection.

Her appearance hadn't improved much since the last time she had chanced to examine herself. A large bruise ran across her lower jaw, proof that purples and greens clashed with light skin tones. Cuts riddled her face beyond that, and there was a swelling above her right eye that she hadn't noticed before.

Yeah, she really had to stop looking at her reflection.

Hot water hit her face and she flinched from both the temperature and pain it caused to the injuries. She cupped her hands under the running water again, creating a shallow basin before repeating her previous action. Her reaction was less now, numb as she was both inside and out. Wisely ignoring the mirror this time, she went for a the disposable towel vendor and grabbed a wad before padding at her face. Water ran down her chin in small streams, and she hastily caught these errant droplets in the paper towel mass before licking the moisture collected about her lips with her tongue.

She tasted salt.

Crying. She was fucking crying again. Damnit -

It didn't stop, either. It continued unbidden, coursing down her cheeks as she whirled around to face the drowning woman in the accursed mirror. Now her cheeks were puffed and red atop everything else, her nose flared and those shitty tears were still running freely down her fucking face.

Motherfucking goddamnit.

She hurled the wad at the grotesque image that was her reflection and it exploded into a confetti-like rain of wet paper. Spinning on her heel, Machiko took one long stride and resubmitted herself to the handicap stall. The door slammed behind her, rebounding off the hinge before swinging widely again. She didn't care by that point, and turned to the porcelain bowl in front of her instead for assistance. Her breakdown only descended into dry heaves, and she gripped the sides of the toilet as her body went through the motions of retching even though the efforts were fruitless. Whatever she had last eaten had been digested thoroughly nearly a day before.

Machiko's mind couldn't completely comprehend her state, but she knew it had something to do with seeing herself so fully realized in the mirror. It made her nightmare suddenly real, the realization that those few that she had known and loved were now gone from the world and would never again walk it.

Okaa-san will never make brownies again.

Her body shuddered deeply.

I'll never again read the paper with Otou-san on Sundays.

She convulsed.

I'll never seen Kouhei's smile again. I loved that smile.

Her fingers flexed and slipped on the slick surface of the porcelain rim as another tremor shook her stomach. She coughed, spitting up bloody phlegm but nothing else. The impact of the projectile against the water within the toilet bowl disrupted her semi-transparent image. For this she was secretly glad.

"Oh my god, are you alright?"

Machiko's spine stiffened at a high voice from directly behind her hunched form. Her head turned too quickly; a pain shot through her temple. The threat of a headache from before had blossomed into a fully-fledged migraine. Her own mortification at being found thus was far worse than the headache ever could be.

Through blurred vision she could ascertain that the voice belonged to a young woman around her own age. The other woman stood in the open gap where the stall door should have been, one hand holding the door aside and the other reaching across the small space separating them. She appeared hesitant, almost as if she wanted to touch Machiko's back but was waiting for permission.

"I saw towels all over the floor, and then I heard… are you okay?" The newcomer's voice was urgent, concerned, and everything one would expect it to be upon discovering a retching woman huddled over toilet.

Machiko licked her lips, noting the lack of sensation found there. She coughed a little again, clearing her throat before reaching for some toilet paper to wipe her mouth off with.

"I'm…" she managed breathlessly, before redoubling her efforts against the bowl once more.

"Easy, easy," the stranger said, finally laying a comforting hand against Machiko's back. She randomly rubbed and patted, and soon Machiko was still once more. "Done?"

Machiko closed her eyes and nodded once in grim resignation as her mind resettled itself. The pressure on her back disappeared for a matter of seconds before returning, and with her other hand the woman offered the her a bundle of fresh towels. Machiko accepted these gratefully, and swiped at her mouth in a hasty effort to clean it. "Thank you."

"No problem. Are you sick? You shouldn't be here if you are."

"No, not sick. I…" Pinwheels dotted her vision. "Do you have aspirin, by chance?"

"Of course." A few muffled sounds filled the air as the woman rummaged around in her bag. Machiko could hear the telltale rattle of pills in a bottle and the unscrewing of a cap. "Here. Go to the sink and get something to drink before swallowing."

I know that.

Immediately, she rebelled against her caustic mental reply. Whomever the woman was, she was genuinely interested in helping Machiko.

"Thanks," she mumbled before standing up. The other woman gripped her by the shoulders and helped her to hobble the short distance from the stall to the sink. Machiko dipped her head with no small effort and used her hands as she had done earlier to create a small basin to collect water in. This time she brought it to her lips, sipping it carefully before accepting two pills from her companion.

Swallowing wasn't too hard, and neither was scooping up more water to scrub her face with. She rubbed hard at her cheeks, trying to wash away the dirt that wasn't there. More water was taken in, only to be swished around in her mouth and spat out again.

"God," was all she could say. With the clean arm of her jacket she wiped wearily at her eyes, clearing her eyesight.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"I've been better."

A sound of disbelief countered her reply, and Machiko almost smiled. Almost.

"My name is Chiyo. I work on this floor, if you were wondering."

"I'm Machiko."

"I haven't seen you before." A pause. "Are you new?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"Thanks again."

"I would hope that someone would stop for me if I were in your position."

Machiko finally looked up, noting her helper's light brown hair and hazel eyes. Her face was a mixture of Caucasian and Asian ancestry, that much was evident. Chiyo wasn't stunning, but she did have a conventional arrangement of features that could be described as pretty.

"I suppose so."

An awkward silence filled the air, and then Chiyo adjusted the expensive purse she carried on her shoulder.

"Well, I had better get to work. If you need anything, let me know. Before Machiko had registered the movement, she was being offered a business card.

She accepted it robotically, and nodded.

The other woman paused, stopping in the space between what hung unsaid and what could be said.

After a minute she turned and walked away. The rhythmic sound of her heels carried on for a space of seconds, and then the door to the hall closed and shut out any further noise.

Machiko stood dumbly, staring at her toes. She sniffled.

At that point, the questions were more than the answers she knew. The rough, sandpapery feel of her rescuer's business card lay pinched between her thumb and forefinger, grounding her in the present.

She stood in Chigusa's locker room bathed in bright light from above, but she had never felt more lost and damned.